


experiments

by egare



Series: A Penchant for Trouble [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Assumed Homosexuality on Multiple Occasions, Comedy, Experiments, Gen, Vampires, but with a sad ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:44:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9266231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egare/pseuds/egare
Summary: There were ten experiments Balgruuf wished he never had to see.





	

"Why is there an arm in the Dragonborn's mouth?" He deadpanned, not surprised, and mostly just curious. It was a nice warm evening, and the Jarl had walked in to ask Farengar about what the consequences a woman turning her husband into a goat should be, when he came across the peculiar sight.

A dark-haired Nord, shirtless, had his arm out as Deldrach's mouth stretched to fit around it with startling ease. He really should not have been surprised that it would come to this with the elf; this was the mer that went out to fight dragons for fun- he probably indulged himself in less than sane experiments every now and again.

"Woor doin' ah efearamon."

"Yes, what he said." Farengar agreed as he measured the circumference of the man's arm, focused on his work.

"Apologies, I did not quite catch what he said because again, there is a arm in his mouth. Who is...?" Irileth interrupted as she entered the conversation and stood next to Balgruuf, crossing her arms at the sight. She started to ask for an identity, gesturing to the man whose arm was in the Dragonborn's mouth, and Farengar provided the answer.

"Farkas, he is a Companion from Jorrvaskr." The wizard was shuffling around his desk, and wrote down what Irileth and Balgruuf assumed were the measurements of the man. He started to look through the drawers, searching for something unknown to the others.

"Deldrach said he'd give me an ebony warhammer if I did this." Farkas offered as an explanation, before they asked the ultimate question of why.

"Of course he did." This one wasn't the brightest, was he? "Where are your clothes, exactly?"

"My room, my Jarl. His armor was getting in the way," answered Farengar, "we have been conducting experiments to see if there are any physical changes for the Dragonborn. You just interrupted the one on his throat and mouth- he can stretch his mouth to nearly double the average size, and has little gag reflex, in case you wanted to know. Now whether this is just because he's rather odd for a Dunmer, or because he is Dragonborn, we have yet to see."

"And you agreed to participating in this... experiment?" Balgruuf asked Farkas, who gave a shrug.

"Bones heal. Ebony warhammers are hard to come by."

"'Bones heal'?" Irileth repeated, concerned with the wording.

"Ahn ika ed e uhen' oo eh."

"And Vilkas said he would not do it, that he would chicken out." Farengar translated, handing Farkas a makeshift ball of various cloth, papers, and... Ectoplasm? "Squeeze, and nod when you are ready."

Farkas did as instructed, nodding, and the ball was crushed in his hand when an audible crack echoed through the palace. Balgruuf turned away, not expecting them to do the experiment with people watching, and Irileth turned stone-face when ectoplasm splattered across her cheek- her eyes went out of focus as she tried to block out what she could not turn away from.

Deldrach spat out a chunk of skin, wiping blood off of his mouth and laughing.

 

* * *

 

"You are not allowed to summon Daedric Princes in my palace!"

"He made me kill my fiancée, my Jarl, I need to do this!"

"Do not lie, Deldrach," Farengar warned from the other side of the circle. "You only knew about your fiancée after you woke up, and she turned out to be a Hagraven."

"Still, it was love at first sight!"

 

* * *

 

"Why are there three mountain goats that look suspiciously like the Jarl's children?" Irileth questioned, making Balgruuf spit out his stew from where he sat a little bit away. Really, he was having a nice meal, did another experiment have to ruin a good day?

"We were testing if the Dragonborn's ability to learn the Thu'um quicker than others meant he could learn spells and such faster than others as well."

"And?"

"Well, if he could learn spells faster than others, the children would be back to their original forms by now."

"To be fair, I did learn the spell to turn them into chickens awfully fast!" A voice shouted from Farengar's office. With a glance over, Balgruuf saw mostly books, but he knew there was a Dunmer hidden behind the stacks.

"If my children are not back by the morning, Dragonborn..."

"Yes yes, you will throw me into the dungeon and only let me out to kill nearby dragons for the rest of my life, I know the tale, my Jarl."

 

* * *

 

"My throne is made of cheese wheels."

He shouldn't even be surprised anymore.

"Why is my throne made of cheese wheels?"

He should have never been surprised in the first place. Really, he went off for three days to meet with the Jarl of Falkreath, and the next thing he knew, his throne was missing and Deldrach was nowhere to be seen.

"My Jarl, you told us all when we first joined to pick and choose our battles, if we knew there was no chance of winning." A guard attempted to defend the group's decision to stand to the side.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"We chose to not fight the Dragonborn, sir."

"All of you?"

The guards nodded.

"You all chose to sit aside while he moved my throne and set up cheese in its place?"

"That is your throne, my Jarl-" One tried to defend, but the other guards gave him a look. Balgruuf pinched the bridge of his nose and, rather harshly, asked

"What?"

Another took over. "Mages- the Dragonborn, a mercenary we did not recognize that came with him, and Farengar. They all were testing spells and ended up turning your throne to cheese, my Jarl."

"No, the mercenary refused to get involved and grumbled to himself about needing to charge more." One of the guards cut in.

"Why did no one try to stop them when you first saw them shoot spells at it?"

"Half of us fought a dragon alongside the Dragonborn, my Jarl. And that was before he had the Thu'um. Scared for our lives, we were."

 

* * *

 

"Ah!"

A shout made Balgruuf's eyes snap open, and he looked toward his door, curious. When the short yelps continued to repeat themselves, the Jarl stood, taking his sword from his spot next to the bed and heading out.

As he headed down the stairs, recognition hit, and he hurried to see what was making the Dragonborn yell. An intruder? An assassin? There was no one in the main hall, and he turned a corner, heading to Farengar's office and-

"By the Nine!" He gave a shout of his own, turning his eyes away from the elf that sat naked on Farengar's desk, only a blanket covering his lower half. "Put some clothes on, Dragonborn!"

He knew that the two of them engaged in odd experiments every now and again, but this? The Dragonborn, and Balgruuf's wizard, together? He would have never thought such a thing. _It explained the yelling,_ he realized, face turning red as he made sure to keep his eyes turned away.

"It is not what it looks like, my Jarl!" A voice came from across the hall, and the court wizard poked his head out of the kitchens. Farengar did not seem surprised to see the Jarl's slightly pale face, as he cut through to his office to speak to his Jarl and his... partner. That would take some getting used to. "His clothing turned to Frostbite spiders."

"It was another experiment?" Jarl Balgruuf asked, his mind pausing as he tried to comprehend what was being said to him. Farengar nodded, setting the basket of... meats? down on his desk. "Why so early in the morning?"

"He was heading off to Solitude right after breakfast, there was no other time."

Silence.

"You should go back to sleep, my Jarl. We will try to keep the volume of our experiments down in the future."

"Right." He furrowed his eyebrows and turned around, getting one last look at Deldrach- now dressed in an extra set of Farengar's robes- before shaking his head and returning to bed. It was too early to deal with one of their experiments this time.

 

* * *

 

"Irileth..."

"They brought a vampire, my Jarl." She offered, watching the trio from the doors of the Great Porch as they experimented once more. They had brought a chair, table, knife, and bowl out with them, and were doing...

It all seemed ritualistic, rather than an experiment. The vampire was off to the side, hiding in the shade and watching as Deldrach bled into the bowl from his hand, licking her lips. The Dragonborn was seated on the chair, looking rather pale but still sitting up, and offered a weak smile to the Jarl and Housecarl that came. Much like usual, Farengar provided the explanation.

"Deldrach believes that he can Shout because of his soul, while I believe it runs in his Dragon blood- we wanted to test it, and since there is no safe way to draw out his soul and see if he could still Shout, we got a vampire, and the Dragonborn's blood and understanding of the Shout."

"You need not acted surprised, my Jarl, you really should have expected this." Deldrach pointed out, not caring that he was currently bleeding into a bowl. "We had not done experiments for a month."

A pause.

"We have promised her that she may leave Whiterun without being set on fire, my Jarl, as long as Deldrach accompanies her to the border and ensures she does not feed in any towns."

That was comforting.

 

* * *

 

"Why in the world do they trust you with their artifacts?"

"To be fair, Sheogorath is not entirely there, my Jarl."

"You are forbidden from leaving this palace until you swear to at least bring someone along with you. If your plan to turn a dragon into a chicken does not work, someone needs to be there to protect your idiotic backside."

"Lydia would be happy to accompany me."

"No, she wouldn't." The housecarl in question interrupted. Deldrach gave a glare, before correcting himself.

"Lydia is required as my housecarl to accompany me."

 

* * *

 

"Did the guards not arrest you, Dragonborn?"

"Your dungeons need better security. And to be fair, it was an experiment- the guard that arrested me will confirm, but not the ones in the dungeons, because I wished to test them without their knowledge."

 

* * *

 

Jarl Balgruuf was excited to go to Winterhold, if only to get away from the chaos of Whiterun. The Dragonborn had disappeared weeks ago- off Talos knew where- and although that meant there was less action in his hold, Farengar was still there. Thus, Winterhold.

Sure, politics were a bore, and the Jarl of Winterhold made him want to stick his head in a dragon's mouth, but it was a nice change of pace. He had left the meeting an hour ago, and was headed up to the College- both to say hello to an old friend, and to pick up a package for Farengar from a supplier of his.

He did not expect the Dragonborn to be hidden away in the College, looking quite literally green when the Jarl caught sight of his Thane.

"My Jarl!" Deldrach greeted, waving from the other side of the courtyard. "What brings you to the College?"

His peace came crashing down the moment the Dragonborn walked up to him.

As he headed over to the Jarl, the trio that was with him stayed behind, curious. The other apprentices looked between the Nord and the Dunmer, trying to guess between themselves how the two were connected.

"Lovers?" The female suggested, getting a glare from her Nord peer.

"J'zargo guesses that the elf is a soldier." Not entirely wrong, not entirely wrong.

"He probably got arrested once." Onmund offered, watching the Jarl nearly pop a blood vessel due to the Dunmer.

"-this is why I do not take young Thanes!" The three's ears perked up at the Jarl's yelling. "Although it usually does not require much, this is a time of war! What if your presence was needed at a meeting, and you were green for it?"

Brelyna paled.

"Jarl Balgruuf." From across the courtyard, Archmage Aren asked for the Jarl's attention, interrupting his shouting. He gave the Dunmer a clear 'this isn't over' look before adopting a smile and turning to the Archmage, greeting him kindly.

The elf retired to his room, shaken, with three bottles of mead in his hands.

 

* * *

 

"Could I return to Sovngarde, do you think?"

Seventeen guards had died warriors that night, as two dragons attacked Whiterun together. Many more were wounded, working to not raise the death toll as it got to be the early hours of the next day.

"Not just yet, Dragonborn. If you die now, Nazeem will become Thane in your place. I can't deal with that man." Lydia warned him, and he gave a chuckle that quickly turned into a cough. The Nord had taken it upon herself to stay with Deldrach until he recovered, having been the reason for the most of his injuries as he jumped in front of a dragon's wing that was heading toward her. Why he would do that, when it was she who was meant to give her life for him, she would never know.

"Tsun promised I would be allowed to return, that the hall would welcome me with open arms regardless of my race." He continued, his smile unwavering even as his gray skin turned lighter. "But what of Azura? And the other Princes, in fact- I am not clean, Lydia, I have done things and received gifts that I should not have ever touched."

"What's this I hear of you doing things you shouldn't be doing, Dragonborn?" Balgruuf asked, having arrived to the Temple as quickly as possible to offer his prayers, condolences, and final conversations with as many of his guards as possible. Irileth was close by, an uncharacteristic look of worry on her face.

"Imagine my surprise, when I heard the Thane of Whiterun, savior of Tamriel, ended up here, and was refusing treatment."

"Others needed it more than I did." He held up his potion weakly, shrugging. "I'll survive until it is my turn."

"Will you?" Irileth asked, not intending to sound rude. She was the only one to voice the question that everyone was thinking. The Dragonborn gave a nod, but it was half-hearted, and his body language was quick to reveal how much he doubted his survival.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." He gave a small snort, not having enough energy for a full on laugh. "To think that I defeated the World-Eater himself, and got taken down by a stupid, weaker dragon that just got lucky."

"My Thane-"

"I was just speaking to Lydia about my longest experiment." He interrupted, not wanting to deal with being told he needed to accept help. "Since I came to Skyrim, I've done the bidding of ten Daedric Princes. But I was also promised entry to Sovngarde, if I wanted it. Time to... Time to see where I end up, eh?"

His smile was sad and pain was evident, as he moved his body to sit up against the wall. "Jarl Balgruuf, I snuck into your room and hid letters under your bed a month ago. If you could have them delivered..."

"Of course, Deldrach." He was using the Dragonborn's name, just like he used the name of every guard that died that morning.

"I also... have a request."

"Anything."

"Do not let Nazeem take my title." Lydia gave a soft laugh, not able to stop herself, but it was wet with tears; she had been thankful for the lack of attention moments ago, allowing herself to feel sadness for the mer that she had spent years with, and glared at the glances that she received. She felt the grip on her hand loosen, as Deldrach closed his eyes, a content smile on his face for a moment. It slackened to a neutral state, and his eyelids relaxed.

"Deldrach?" She asked, voice soft.

There was no reply.


End file.
